


Ghosts and Memories

by Elendiliel



Series: A Medic's Guide to the Galaxy [8]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action, Force Empathy (Star Wars), Gen, Planet Geonosis (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26951659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendiliel/pseuds/Elendiliel
Summary: Hux and El have been paired up again for another mission, this time as part of a sabotage team aiming to take out a newly reactivated factory being used by a First Order splinter group. The only problem (besides life's general unpredictability): the factory is full of embedded memories and departed spirits. It's not going to be easy, but since when did that matter?
Series: A Medic's Guide to the Galaxy [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954132





	Ghosts and Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sanctuary](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006582) by [CaptainXcamino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainXcamino/pseuds/CaptainXcamino). 



> Chronology: some months after The Rise of Skywalker, round about the same time as Celebrations or a little after (it doesn't really matter).

Patrol is never the most interesting part of a stormtrooper’s duties. Especially when the patrol area is an unused section of an old factory in the Outer Rim, so low risk that the guards were working solo. So one particular soldier was a little relieved when his routine round was interrupted by a person he’d thought was dead apparently materialising from the shadows in front of him. And scared, of course, although he’d rather die than admit it. Partly because this was _General Hux_ , a legend in the Order, but mostly because of the narrow-bore blaster he could feel at the back of his neck.

Not so scared that he didn’t try to challenge the intruder, deep-seated conditioning briefly overriding even his survival instinct. Luckily for him, whoever was holding the blaster reacted by removing his from his hands. He heard what sounded like a short-circuit in the rifle’s control mechanism, then a clatter behind him as though it had been flung to the floor with some force. After that, staying still seemed to be the wisest option, as did answering the ghost-General’s questions.

Which were many, and quite detailed, and had to do with the factory’s layout, the number and strength of the patrols further in, and the commanders of this unit of the scattered remnants of the First Order. Every time the stormtrooper even considered lying or withholding information, more pressure was applied to his neck. He had no choice but to answer truthfully and in full, and hope that his superiors never found out about this.

At last, the inquisition drew to a close. The blaster was withdrawn as the General thanked him for his time. Relief flooded the trooper’s mind, obscuring the application of a hypo to the side of his neck. He didn’t feel the microneedle administering a sedative dose of etorphine, or the arms gently lowering him to the floor as he folded up.

I knew all of this because while I’d been holding the poor man at gunpoint, I’d been scanning the outer layers of his mind to verify his statements. I couldn’t stop myself identifying with him, or despising myself and the whole situation. There’s a reason empaths like me have never been trained as Jedi or Sith – too passionate for one, too compassionate for the other. We’re also too unstable for the Grey and generally hopeless as soldiers, but that suits me fine. It gives me space to follow my own path, which at that point had led me to the desert planet Geonosis as half of the pathfinding section of a Resistance strike team. We’d had word that a splinter group of the First Order, in total disarray after our victory over Exegol, was using the old Separatist factory here, and come to investigate. All the data in the Resistance’s files and R2’s and 3PO’s memory banks were from the beginning of the Clone Wars, over fifty years before. We couldn’t rely on them. Hence Hux and me doing some preliminary snooping around, and scaring hapless troopers half to death. He knows the Order inside out and can get information out of people without messing up their minds; I can tell truth (or honest errors) from lies.

As I checked my victim over to ensure that he’d be all right for the time being (etorphine is dangerous stuff, but the fastest-acting sedative I had), I accessed a pre-existing telepathic connection to the other two sections’ Force-sensitive halves and our pilot. Forming coherent words over a mental link doesn’t come naturally to me, but practice makes perfect – one day, I hope. _Did you get all that?_ I’d been relaying the whole encounter to the others, mind-to-mind at first, although a recording of the feed from the cameras recently installed in my eye-lenses would be making its way to them soon. None of us had picked up any other sensitives in the area, so this mode of communication should be perfectly safe, and better by far than anything electromagnetic.

The other contact points – Finn in the sabotage team (the mission’s overall commander), Ben in what we’d nicknamed the artillery unit and Rey waiting in the _Falcon_ – acknowledged receipt, and began adapting our existing strategy accordingly. Telepathic communication isn’t just more secure than conventional comms. It can also be a lot faster, and less susceptible to misinterpretation, especially if the parties are as emotionally linked as we are. Before long, we had a plan of attack figured out, roughly following the outline we already possessed. AE – Hux and I – would make our way to the centre of operations, and along with BC – Ben and Chewbacca – create enough of a disturbance that FR – Finn and Rose – could put several spanners in the works without too much trouble.

I relayed this verbally to Hux, who despite being bonded to me hadn’t been able to follow all the debate. I knew it annoyed him, as did taking orders from his former pupil, but there was nothing to be done. Active telepathy isn’t among my gifts, and I’d had a hard enough time keeping up with the conversation. And he does respect a chain of command, even if this one’s a bit ropey. The late General Organa (Leia to everyone who knew her) chose Poe Dameron as her successor, and he promoted Finn to join him. Hux is technically a civilian – yes, I know, it makes no sense to me either – consultant, reporting directly to the generals, although in practice the medical staff (ourselves included) can override even their orders with good reason. Operational situations are an exception to that.

“I didn’t expect to be wearing this again,” I commented as we set off for the control centre at a brisk walking pace (running would draw too much attention too early). I was referring to the First Order lieutenant’s uniform I’d last worn to infiltrate a Star Destroyer, a mission which had ended in capture, torture and a pretty hair-raising rescue. (That was also how I first met Hux, incidentally, and ended up sort-of dating Poe for a while. In every cloud, there’s a silver lining.) The last time _he’d_ worn his FO uniform, he’d been shot twice and almost killed. Definite mixed feelings.

“If it’s any consolation, nobody who knows you would be taken in for a moment. You wear it like an actress.” In the circumstances, I took that as a compliment. At that moment I don’t think anybody familiar with the FO would have been fooled, either. There was still nobody about, so I hadn’t bothered with the arrogant-officer mental mask that completed the disguise, and my bearing and expression probably had _Republic_ written all over them. (Maybe _nurse_ , as well. My stance and gait also showed all too clearly to anyone familiar with such things that I was used to having a med-kit on my hip, not a blaster.) Hopefully I wouldn’t need the mask at all. This was a straightforward in-and-out mission, with enough slack in the plan that it might even survive contact with reality.

Reality was something with which I was having some difficulty at that point in time. This was where the Clone Wars had begun. A _lot_ of people, some of them Jedi, had died near there, and not all of those had stayed in the netherworld. A couple of recent journeys through the World Between Worlds had sensitised me to its influence, which is problematic if you need to remember that the thing on your belt is a blaster rather than a lightsabre, and that telekinesis is _not_ one of your skills. I tried to focus on real things – the unfamiliar feeling of the FO uniform against my skin, the sound of our footsteps, the map and path we’d put together from old datafiles and the information we’d just been given. Scanning ahead of us for unexpected patrols was trickier than usual, until I managed to convey to the ghosts around us who and what I was and why we were there. After that, they were downright helpful, as far as I could tell, not being able to see or hear them clearly.

The final part of our route was straight downwards. An abseil down three stories’ worth of sheer wall would put us right in the ops centre, with any luck panicking them enough that they’d pull some of the personnel off the production lines. Especially once BC turned up. A Wookie and a Jedi can create a very satisfying amount of panic. Unfortunately for me, so can a three-floor drop in someone scared of heights. I didn’t quite manage to conceal this from Hux.

“Are you sure you can do this safely?” It was an operational query, not pure friendly concern. I don’t think he knows how to show that, even to me.

“It’s necessary. This is the best way down, and we need to keep attention away from the others. _I can cope_. I did a lot of climbing in my last year but one at school. Trust me, once you’ve got stuck two feet off the ground in front of most of your friends and two teachers, you don’t do it again.” I didn’t mention that I’d never tried anything this high, or that I’d point-blank refused to attempt something similar and rather less dangerous as a child. Something else I didn’t intend to do twice. Besides, explaining that to Hux would get tricky. His _father_ wouldn’t have tolerated such weakness; mine would have been greatly surprised if I _had_ been daring and adventurous, or even the least bit sporty.

Nobody was paying the area below us any attention. All eyes were on a newly built walker that was being put through its paces. AT-ST, at a guess, and Hux confirmed that once I’d used the zoom and feed-transfer functions in my lenses to show him. Fully automated, non-sapient. A killing machine, pure and simple. Mercifully, looking the other way. I’d go down first, trusting in my mental-invisibility field, and slip in among the real officers. Once someone spotted Hux – he’s so very recognisable – I could sow a satisfactory level of confusion.

 _No plan survives first contact with the enemy_. Halfway down, a premonition hijacked my muscles, swinging me to one side, almost in time. A ricochet from the walker’s trials caught me an inch or two above the waist and along the side of my ribcage. Without the warning, it would have hit my spine; without the cortosis armour under my tunic, the pain would have caused me to black out. Either would have been fatal, immediately or when I hit the ground. As it was, it felt like being hit with a red-hot iron bar, and I had to fight to stay conscious for a while. Three – no, four – ribs broken and first-degree burns, I reckoned. I’d patched up enough of both to identify them.

No time to waste. I could sense Ben moving into position. A punctured lung would slow me down even more, so I adjusted the armour to act as a binding and carried on, sending a pulse of reassurance to Hux, still waiting at the top and distinctly concerned. I’d kept most of the pain to myself, but he could tell something was wrong. The rest of the descent was harder, with my side still on fire, but I’d fielded worse. And would again, if we couldn’t make this work. I’d been listing the names, modes of action and contraindications of as many anxiolytics as I knew to stave off fear; now I switched to painkillers.

The original plan would have to be modified. There was no way I was passing for a FO officer with my tunic in this state. I signalled Hux to begin his descent, scanning for trouble and striving to keep this place’s embedded memories at bay.

Somehow he got down without being spotted. We’d agreed beforehand that the AT-ST was our first priority, as well as a good attention-getting target. I’d heard enough stories from the civil war about the devastation they caused. I could have short-circuited it from there, but that wouldn’t have created the right effect. We made our way around the perimeter of the ops centre, which was an open space in the middle of the factory, roughly circular. Once close enough to the walker, Hux skimmed a pressure-sensitive explosive charge towards it, aiming for where its foot was about to go. I had another in my hand ready for a second attempt (it’s not a precise art at the best of times), but it wasn’t necessary. The force of the directed explosion wrecked one foreleg, causing the machine to tip. A contact-activated grenade aimed at the other foreleg sent it toppling forwards. (Always the weak point of those machines.) Probably the best throw I’d ever managed. All those hours of compulsory sports at school had paid off at last.

 _Now_ they’d spotted us. We dived for cover as the first volley of shots came our way, re-emerging just enough to return fire. Their marksmanship was up to normal standard, i.e. terrible. Even so, we couldn’t afford to miss, so we made sure we didn’t. As we waited for BC’s arrival, present and past fought for dominance in my vision. Were those stormtroopers or droids? Was this a blaster or a sabre? Were we in an ops centre or an arena? And were those beasties thundering around real or not? _Really_ not the best time for this…

The explosion that tore away a door on the other side of the ops centre was real, all right. So were the people that stepped through the new hole. There are few species better at being present and somehow genuine than Wookies. The sight of our friends helped ground me, as did the panic I could sense as the FO personnel recognised both one of their mortal enemies and their former Supreme Leader. _Send for reinforcements!_ It felt slightly counterintuitive to be hoping that they would, given that we were already badly outnumbered, but that had been the plan.

They did – I could see one of the officers using his commlink and more or less read his lips – and in a way, so had we. Some of the ghosts around us were visible to me at last. I was sure none of them had died there, but they had _fought_ there all right, and two of them were Ben’s grandparents. Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala and their friend and mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, seemingly along for the ride. I still couldn’t hear them easily, but I thought I caught _So uncivilised_ – apparently referring to our blasters – from Master Kenobi. I tried to signal that I hadn’t had a choice in the matter, and agreed with him, but it was lost in the chaos.

Between the living and the technically-dead, we eventually contrived to force a retreat without any more injuries on our side, or fatalities on theirs. It helped that the members of our remaining sub-team were doing what they did best – messing things up – to great effect, judging by the commlink chatter. The ghosts faded as the battle wound down, as unexpectedly as they had arrived and with no more ceremony, although some of those I had sensed earlier were still on the edge of perception. Not enough that I had any more doubt about where and when I was.

“How bad?”, Ben asked, as we started to tend to the wounded and pull whatever data we could from the computer cores that had been left behind. I knew he was referring to my damaged side, which I’d hoped to handle myself. No such luck, it seemed.

“Manageable. Four ribs broken and some surface burns. The armour held. Good idea of Hux’s.” Ben agreed. The guarded truce that the ex-rivals had had after Ben’s resurrection and Armitage’s arrival at the Resistance base had become a true friendship. I was very glad of that. “Honestly, I can deal –“

Too late. Ben’s fingertips brushed against my side, and I sensed him transferring Force energy to me, fixing the broken bones and charred skin much faster than even a bacta tank would. His presence in the Force always used to remind me of a forest at night; now, it’s definitely daytime, and late spring or summer. Like the forests around my home. Apt, considering that Padmé and I are from the same planet. Distant cousins, in fact, which makes Ben and me blood-kin as well as heart-family.

“ _Thank you_.” I meant it. I know better than almost anyone else, and he knows better than I do, the consequences of overreaching oneself when attempting a Force-healing. He died saving Rey, and I helped (in a small way) to bring him back.

“You’re welcome.” Would anyone have believed, a year before, that Kylo Ren could look and sound so much like Leia? Or, for that matter, Han Solo? “We can’t have a good medic out of commission.”

Shaking my head, I returned to the clearing-up operation. The production lines had been emphatically shut down, and arrangements had been made to monitor the planet for any more attempts to use it for military purposes. All that remained was to meet up with the rest of the strike team and return to base. And, for some of us, have a serious conversation about the ghosts and memories we’d sensed here. Probably _with_ some of said ghosts. Their assistance had been invaluable, but I’d have liked some warning! Oh well. The Force is as it is, unfathomable and untameable, and it made sense that those it had touched took on the same characteristics. I for one wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
